Positivity is For Wussies – 3rd Lenten Reflection

“Thy prophets have seen false and foolish things for thee: and they have not laid open thy iniquity, to excite thee to penance: but they have seen for thee false revelations and banishments.”
–Lamentations 2:14

The other day I received a complaint from one of my few dozen readers: “Do you ever find anything positive?” It implied that all my content is negative.

This is patently myopic and reflects an unwillingness to read entire articles (anywhere past the title or initial paragraphs). It’s the mentality you’ll find most often among Boomers and others who refuse to consume any information beyond memes, Faux News, conservative outrage porn, or moronic “TV” shows.

For if they did, they’d notice I’ve assembled a small library of positive reading. I literally have several edifying articles with hopeful content (though nobody reads the positive stuff). Here is a brief selection for your perusal.

• The Joys of Praying for Amelia from Fatima
• God’s Love = An Alternative to Gay Slime Month
• The Wonderful Implications of Mary’s Triumph
• How to Get Married – Catholic Style
• The Joys of Drinking Cleaner Beer
• How the Blessed Virgin Saved Catholicism (Multiple Times)
• Ways to Kill Modernism by Praying in Latin
• The Great Gift of the Holy Eucharist
• A Helpful Beginner’s Workout Program
• . . . and so forth.

So, please don’t harangue me about excessive negativity. I’ve probably been more positive than you have over the past several years. Most of the phony-mercy, always-positive folks struggle with melancholy far more than they’d ever admit.

I believe, however, there’s a deeper problem, where so many are terrified of the Cross and unwilling to face adversity, anxiety, or whatever they deem “negativity.” Many American Catholics succumb to this, compelling me to compose this brief rant on why positivity is for wussies.

“Be Nice! Be Positive! Smile!” → A Wussy Mentality

Modern Americans, including Catholics (especially those who refuse to leave stupid Novice Order, hellhole parishes) tend to be consolation and positivity junkies. You’ll never hear them accept or meditate on difficult truths such as The Doctrine of the Fewness of the Saved.

Instead, make way for loads of rubbish pertaining to improbable illuminations, presumptions of God’s mercy, and a belief that most people go to heaven. The Charismatic Catholic Renewal fits this description well, but they are far from alone in this erroneous mentality.

The most suspicious “thought leaders” lead their followers to believe “we’re right around the corner from something big, a golden era of prosperity; any time now; I can feel it.” You hear this misleading message from several camps in the fake-Catholic or semi-conservative communities.

It’s also the driving force behind the ridiculous Divine Faustina Mercy Devotion, a harbinger of false hope, if ever there was one. Today’s Prosperity Gospel crowd, many of them “Catholic,” constantly conflate the false virtue of “nice” with “kindness” or “charity.” 

They lack proper comprehension of the virtues (kindness and charity), preferring instead to cheapen them into effeminate pseudo-virtues. This sneaky deception is the hallmark of today’s false shepherds, almost all of whom adhere to Vatican II.

These individuals consider negativity the only dangerous sin, thinking of St. Jerome and other saints as “mean, old grumps.” Shame on these charlatan, false-hope-spewing modernists.

Nice Wussies Can’t Distinguish the City of God from the City of Man

The “nice” crowd either has a tremendous difficulty paying attention or cannot construe the authentic gospel from the cheap, plastic-fantastic, smiley junk transmitted by Joel Osteen. That would be awful enough, but they also insist on ensnaring others into the superficial, flimsy, nebulous, and unfounded positivity. Sometimes, this wussy mentality leads people to judge my messages (and those of other harsher critics) as unduly critical.

However, anyone who can attenuate their ADHD symptoms for about 20 minutes will notice deeper narratives in my work, culminating in the authentic hope of the Gospel. At least that’s what I attempt.

If you read to the end of my posts (any of the last several), you’ll notice I ALWAYS finish on a positive note. I always, even at the risk of coming across repetitious, encourage readers to pray the Rosary and await Our Lord’s Return and Mary’s Triumph.

Moreover, you can check the very top of my website, underneath the title, where I furnish the constant reminder that discouragement is from the devil. That’s the best positivity you’ll ever need, in a nutshell, free of charge, and without the financial chicanery you encounter from the fake-Catholic, pseudo-positivity cult, quite abundant online.

If it helps at all, I’ve invented a new term to describe these always-positive Internet warriors: Prospertarians.

Why should you avoid becoming a Prospertarian?

Because Holy Scripture and the saints (like St. Augustine) teaches us to distinguish between the City of God and the City of Man. Whenever we discuss the latter, we’ll find NOTHING but negativity, whereas the former leads us to unyielding joy, assuming we precipitate that joy by sowing in tears.

As a matter of fact, that’s the entire purpose of Passiontide, our current liturgical season. During this somber time, the Church dies to itself, setting aside all the “alleluias” and “glorias” in favor of desolation and sorrow while anticipating Our Lord’s resurrection. Even the Mass readings come from the sorrowful Old Testament sections found throughout Lamentations, Jeremiah, Baruch, and Isiah.

Yet, many of the folks who desire fluffy-bunny news, couldn’t offer a synopsis for any of those Scriptures if their lives depended on it. Why, then, should we care about their insistence on a so-called “Prosperity Gospel”? Given their errors, we should ignore all their prescriptions outright.

Jesus and Mary Did Not Need “Positivity”

Then, if we profess to be slaves to Jesus and Mary (as we should), we ought to review what it meant to live like them.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, never experienced a single moment of consolation during His Incarnate Life. His Passion, rather than His Triumph, occupied His holy thoughts for the duration of His time with us. You can visualize this quite well just from the imagery in the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (see below).

Of course, the same can be said for The Blessed Virgin Mary who compassionated Our Lord’s suffering. During Jesus’ Passion (hence, Passiontide), Mary experienced the utmost sorrow, most pronounced whenever she looked upon the mutilated condition of Our Lord. St. Alphonsus Liguori explains this better than anyone else (don’t skip past this; bold emphasis, mine).

The Martyrs suffered under the torments inflicted on them by tyrants, but Our Lord, Who never abandons His servants, always comforted them in the midst of their sufferings. The love of God burning in their hearts rendered all their pains sweet and pleasing to them. So that the greater their love for Jesus Christ, the less did they feel their pains; and, in the midst of them all, the remembrance alone of the Passion of Christ sufficed to console them. With Mary it was precisely the reverse; for the torments of Jesus were her Martyrdom, and love for Jesus was her only executioner. Here we must repeat the words of Jeremias: Great as the sea is thy destruction: who shall heal thee? As the sea is all bitterness, and has not within its bosom a single drop of water which is sweet, so also was the heart of Mary all bitterness, and without the least consolation: Who shall heal thee? Her Son alone could console her and heal her wounds; but how could Mary receive comfort in her grief from her crucified Son, since the love she bore Him was the whole cause of her Martyrdom?

Our Lady found nothing positive about Calvary, save for Her total faith and commitment to the Will of God, which demanded she suffer for our redemption’s sake. To think, we wretched worms have the nerve to demand “positive news” after enslaving ourselves to Jesus and Mary, who enjoyed no such benefit, despite being far more deserving.

Furthermore, those who consecrate themselves to Jesus and Mary know better than to pursue anything other than the Cross.

This Life is Meant to Be Loathsome & Dissatisfying

Either way you slice it, this life is miserable (almost everything around us), one laqueum after another. Our true hope rests in eternity, where we’ll enjoy infinite bliss, if we exercise patience and delayed gratification, and park the stupid fetish of needing “positive news” all the time. 

So, stop being a mealy-mouthed wussy in search of “good news’ (we already have it). If you can’t, then you’re more than welcome to waste time reading materials from Mark Mallett, or the phony-mercy grifters all over the Internet. You can also fetch all of your instructions from the priests who speak with valley-girl voices, never addressing difficult topics.

Also, for what it’s worth, there IS good news in the world (from a certain perspective). I genuinely appreciate how Donald Trump’s tariffs have caused gold to skyrocket lately. I get to earn $400 or more a day every time my gold holdings rise another $70-an-ounce. Perhaps I’ll quit my day job and finally earn money the easy way! Whee!

Then, if this nonsense crashes the entire economy, all the better, because we’ll be yet another step closer to Jesus Christ’s return, and be finished with this rotten “vale of tears” once and for all, provided we persevere in sanctifying grace.

Your alternative is to chase after facades of “positivity” found among these stupid political movements: conservatism, mercy-ism, Forever Trumpism, and the like. Maybe Cdl. Burke, who refuses to acknowledge the obvious Bergoglian Antipapacy, will lead everybody on a 90-year novena, hoping things will get better. Let me know how well that strategy (prayer without works or militancy) goes for you.

Finally, if you would prefer all the pathetic, secular, socio-political dopamine hits and “good feels,” then I’ll not stop you. Enjoy the ephemeral filth and positivity porn while it lasts.

A Genuinely Positive Endnote

In the meantime, non-wussy, non-zombie Catholics, not driven by their emotions, will endure the secular absurdity, “embrace the suck” so to speak, and await the incorruptible crown and Beatific Vision. However, you must mortify the flesh, pray the Rosary every day (all 15 decades, without rushing it), in anticipation of something much better than the worldly false promises. 

May God bless you with a fruitful Passiontide and a joyous Easter.